The rate of concussions among U.S. high school athletes has more than doubled between 2005 and 2012, with numbers now as high as 300,000 per year, according to a study published this year in The American Journal of Sports Medicine.

While 29 percent of those concussions happened in football, the danger of such head injuriestranscends into other sports. It crosses gender lines as well.

Virginia Tech is participating in a new, landmark $30 million national effort sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the U.S. Department of Defense to combat concussions among college athletes and active service military personnel.

The NCAA-U.S. Department of Defense initiative funds the most comprehensive study of concussion and head impact exposure ever conducted. It will enroll an estimated 25,000 male and female NCAA student-athletes during a three-year study period. Virginia Tech will focus on athletes participating in various sports, including football, women’s soccer, men’s soccer, and women’s lacrosse.

Is there a link between football players’ concussions and their predisposition to commit domestic violence?

No researcher has yet studied a direct relationship between concussions and NFL players’ behavior. That’s partly because there are many confounding factors. Starting when they’re young, football players are cultivated for their aggression. And trying to hold onto a job in professional football — where many contracts aren’t guaranteed — is inherently stressful, potentially leaving players on edge.

Children are getting more sports- and recreation-related concussions than ever before. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of concussions in children has risen 60 percent during the past decade. Each year, more than 173,000 children and adolescents are treated in emergency rooms for concussions and other traumatic brain injuries.

Concussions are traumatic injuries to the brain that occur after a blow to the head or body. The brain, made of soft tissue, shifts inside the skull, causing temporary changes in how the brain works. Most concussions last between seven and 10 days, but they can be serious and last longer.

Despite overwhelming evidence of the sport’s dangers, high school football participation is down just 2% since 2008. Since the kids won’t kick the sport, legislators and state athletic associations are trying to make it safer.

Football practices at which middle- and high-school students tackle each other will be restricted in California under a law signed on Monday by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, the latest U.S. effort to minimize brain injuries from the popular sport.

The measure, which limits practices with full-on tackling during the playing season and prohibits them during most of the off-season, comes amid growing concern nationwide over brain damage that can result from concussions among student as well as professional athletes.

U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09), founder and co-chair of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, today released the latest installment of “To the Point” entitled “Fair Play: Protecting our student athletes from sports-related concussions”, in which he discusses the dangers of concussions in youth sports and how we can better protect our youngest athletes on the playing field.

Guests include Niki Popyer, a former high school athlete from Marlboro, NJ who sustained multiple sports-related concussions; Dr. Robb Rehberg, Executive Director of Sport Safety International, and; Dr. Seth Stoller, Neurology Chief for the Concussion Center at the Atlantic Neuroscience Institute at Overlook Hospital in Summit.Watch the Video

It’s a hot July afternoon, just before a thunderstorm. The Bonnette family is in the living room next to a fan, discussing schedules. 17-year-old Giuliana Bonnette plays the right side position for the varsity volleyball team at Dominion High School in Sterling. She is now recovered from two concussions she suffered in the spring.

“It started out as just a really bad headache, and a little bit of confusion,” Bonnette said.

These were Giuliana Bonnette’s symptoms after her first concussion 6 months ago. Her head slammed against the ground during volleyball tryouts. It was first diagnosed as whiplash.